Having said that, I’m also coming from a completely different model than the “Ushahidi’s” of the world. My nonprofit offers a service to Africans rather than a product and is in a somewhat different boat. It is difficult to tell when I should begin to seek out funding and in what forms due to the nature of my work. I see a great need for more discussion on this topic for those of us who might not fit the social enterprise model that seems to be more prevalent now.
Thanks for bringing it to light. It is refreshing to those of us just beginning on the nonprofit pathway. Keep up the great posts Erik.
]]>There are of course some high ticket projects that may need funding from start. So the above thought, of course is not applicable blindly.
]]>First are the groups such as Global Voices and Frontline SMS. They have worked in the more traditional way in which you’re talking in that they had a initial ‘product’ prior to getting funding. In the case of GV, they also had Ethan which went a long way to grant a voice of authority to the project which wouldn’t have been afforded it if it were just a couple of nobodies starting up.
The second group is where Ushahidi fits in. Your project was born of an idea by several people that then created a mashup that was less of a prototype and more of a sandbox experiment. You’ve since gone on to create a platform from that original line of thinking. Ushahidi had the benefit of reaching a critical mass of acceptance due to the time in which it was built in Kenya, as well as the fact it had the equivalent of several ‘Ethans’ promoting it who already were accepted authorities on the situation. There were not clunky, link roundups that defined the first incarnations of GV or the Visual Basic first version of Frontline. Because of this, it could be said that it was the exception to the rule of having to go through design iterations before getting funding, but I think the key exception in all of this is you, Erik. Ushahidi could have easily died off after stability returned after the elections, but you’ve managed sell the product well and to maintain momentum which has brought continued funding. It’s an opportunity that not a lot of groups manage to pull off.
If you think that this isn’t the case, check out the grant applications guidelines for a lot of the big foundations out there. They specifically spell out, “we do not award grants for general operations”. They are very much project/idea based.
]]>Yet good luck changing that paradigm. NGO’s with their hand out have no power and foundations want the fame of “finding” the new idea. Best to work with what the system is.
Which means, DO NOT build in advance of pitch to foundations. VC’s are a different story.
]]>I always say to people who are starting out that they need to build something (usually quick and dirty) at the beginning, not only to prove their commitment and ingenuity/entrepreneurialism, but also to show that their idea meets a real need. “Learn to do what you can’t afford to pay other people to do” is one of the tips on a post I wrote recently to help people starting out. The whole post is here:
http://www.kiwanja.net/blog/2008/11/mobile-applications-development-observations/
We received our first funding for FrontlineSMS in 2007. The project started in 2005. Proving to donors over those two years that we were committed to something which had real world value was key, and continues to be.
Ken
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